Erika D. Smith: Poor will feel left out of Ballard's plans for city

Feb. 3, 2014

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard. / Star file

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When Mayor Greg Ballard takes the stage this month to deliver the annual State of the City address, what he has to say is likely to be polarizing.

Those with money will love it. Those without money will hate it. To be more specific, white people with money will love it and black people without money will hate it.

The sad thing is this reaction will have nothing to do with the merits of his plan for reversing an unsustainable spiral of shrinking income tax dollars. It’s a trend that makes it almost impossible for Indianapolis to do everything from adding more sidewalks to adequately plowing the streets during snowstorms.

Ballard’s solution is to stem the tide of residents who move to the suburbs when they start a family. He wants to improve the quality of life in Indy, finding ways to add more parks, improve schools, encourage more high-end housing, cut crime and market the city’s “cultural identity.”

In short, according to his advisers who met recently with Star editors and writers, the mayor plans to do everything he can to attract and then keep people with money in Indianapolis.

That makes perfect sense. The math works.

Chief of Staff Ryan Vaughn, for example, says if Indianapolis could add 50,000 residents who earn $50,000 a year at jobs in the city, it would increase income tax revenue enough to eliminate a $40 million operating budget deficit next year.

But that approach raises a key question: If Ballard and staff spend most of their time courting residents with money, what will that mean for residents without money?

That is a concern because a lot of people don’t have much money in Indianapolis. About 27 percent of the population makes less than $27,000 a year. And poverty is spreading. Once confined to mostly black Center Township, poverty has spread into the other townships, even as a bubble of wealth has formed in Downtown.

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In these poorest neighborhoods are people, mostly black people, who feel they’ve been left out of Indianapolis’ upward trajectory. That they’ve been ignored.

They’ve watched as the city has built — and then torn down — expensive sports arenas. As we’ve hosted major sporting events and conventions. As we’ve spent oodles of money subsidizing fancy apartment complexes and grocery stores in well-to-do, mostly white neighborhoods.

At the same time, they’ve watched schools deteriorate, gun violence and drugs gain an ever-stronger foothold, and the unemployment rate climb to a much higher level in the black community than in the rest of the city.

So one might imagine how Ballard’s State of the City address will go over with these residents. Attracting middle- and higher-income residents won’t sound like a new strategy, as much as a continuation of the old one.

Of course, things aren’t that simple. But communicating those nuances will be key.

When asked about how Ballard’s administration will handle communication, Vaughn said it will come down to going out and talking to residents, identifying specific needs in specific neighborhoods, and then “finding ways to make those needs a reality.” He pointed to parts of the mayor’s plan that call for improving schools and reducing crime — two wish-list items for almost every resident of Indianapolis, regardless of income.

Those conversations will help. But the administration is missing a larger point. An answer to the question of why the city will spend money trying to attract and keep wealthy residents instead of spending money helping the city’s most vulnerable? Why will this help everyone in Indianapolis in the long term?

I know the answers to these questions because I’m lucky enough to have a job where city officials take the time to explain everything to me. But the average resident of Indianapolis has no idea why city officials do what they do. They only know what they see. What they have seen, decade after decade.

Not everyone will agree with what Ballard has to say in his State of the City address. But I hope he will explain why everyone should care.